• Question: how many microscopes do you have? why do you find them so intresting?

    Asked by to Ian on 20 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ian Hands-Portman

      Ian Hands-Portman answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      I have seven big ones ( things that need their own room ) and around ten small ones. I like them so much because they let us see hidden detail and things we had no idea existed ‘down there’ ( we tend to think of high magnification as ‘down’). Even with a really basic toy microscope a moldy old piece of leaf shows an amazing busy world of plants and animals in constant motion – things so strange that you’d think they’d been made up for some sci fi programme. They also let me spread across the sciences a bit – I don’t just stick with cells and viruses and I get to look at stuff from physics, chemistry and even food manufacturers.

      The more we look the more detail we find down there and I love spotting things I know have never been seen before.

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